Do you use ribbons in the applications you develop?
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You are mistaking me for the former Jedi. I am the other one.
I have CDO, it's OCD with the letters in the right order; just as they ruddy well should be
Forgive your enemies - it messes with their heads
Yes, you are not the Jedi I am looking for. I will move along.
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Just curious, based on Chris' rant. So, do you actually develop applications that have a ribbon bar, or do you use the old fashioned menu and toolbars? Do your customers demand that you create a UI with a ribbon so they feel like they are in the "modern" world? Marc
I haven't done before, but would consider it depending on how much I think the app is suited for it and if I think the customers would be more familiar with and prefer it. I've not started a single new app (other than small utilities that have had barely any UI) since I first saw the ribbon though and moving from menus and toolbars to a ribbon in existing apps is very low on the priority list even if the ribbon was to be favored so haven't really thought about it much. This is for apps I develop myself at home. In the workplace at everywhere I've worked the customers typically don't even like toolbars and menubars let alone ribbons. They always seem to want to have big buttons all over the place instead (often drawing up the forms themselves and usually very inconsistent with other forms in the same app but they're the customer I guess).
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Just curious, based on Chris' rant. So, do you actually develop applications that have a ribbon bar, or do you use the old fashioned menu and toolbars? Do your customers demand that you create a UI with a ribbon so they feel like they are in the "modern" world? Marc
I'd happily create a configurable toolbar holder that looked like a ribbon.
I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!
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It is indeed, and your task for this evening is to work out which one. I'll give you a clue; it's a Vietnam movie.
I have CDO, it's OCD with the letters in the right order; just as they ruddy well should be
Forgive your enemies - it messes with their heads
I googled "You don't know man. You weren't there. I remember Sarge saying to me" and it comes up with, Black Hawk Down, Band of Brothers, and Saving Private Ryan :laugh:
See if you can crack this: fb29a481781fe9b3fb8de57cda45fbef
The unofficial awesome history of Code Project's Bob! "People demand freedom of speech to make up for the freedom of thought which they avoid."
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Just curious, based on Chris' rant. So, do you actually develop applications that have a ribbon bar, or do you use the old fashioned menu and toolbars? Do your customers demand that you create a UI with a ribbon so they feel like they are in the "modern" world? Marc
Yes, even for web applications.
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Yes, even for web applications.
Nemanja Trifunovic wrote:
Yes, even for web applications.
So, since you're the one contrarian in the replies so far, why do you use ribbons? Marc
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Nemanja Trifunovic wrote:
Yes, even for web applications.
So, since you're the one contrarian in the replies so far, why do you use ribbons? Marc
Marc Clifton wrote:
why do you use ribbons?
Because I am told so :) Seriously, I work for a big software company - it is other people's job to design UI. I design and write code.
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Marc Clifton wrote:
why do you use ribbons?
Because I am told so :) Seriously, I work for a big software company - it is other people's job to design UI. I design and write code.
Nemanja Trifunovic wrote:
it is other people's job to design UI.
Ah! :) Marc
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Just curious, based on Chris' rant. So, do you actually develop applications that have a ribbon bar, or do you use the old fashioned menu and toolbars? Do your customers demand that you create a UI with a ribbon so they feel like they are in the "modern" world? Marc
I have and would do so again. I've found that what people don't like about ribbons is that there are too many options present which makes it more difficult to use. That's not a problem with UI design, not ribbons per-se. As far as I'm concerned a ribbon is a single-tier menu where each menu item has it's own toolbar. It doesn't have to be much different than the way things were done before with a menu and a toolbar, except now, with multiple toolbars, things can be presented in a way that looks simpler. Unfortunately most of the ribbons I've seen haven't been treated that way and the developers dump every bit of funtionality into them as they can. Not a great way to develop any UI, including a ribbon. Cheers, Drew. [edited to take out the "not"]
modified on Wednesday, December 1, 2010 7:34 PM
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Yes, yes and yes. We are development whores, and will do anything for the clients money. This explains why gathering user requirements feels like lap dancing a fat, sweaty bloke.
I have CDO, it's OCD with the letters in the right order; just as they ruddy well should be
Forgive your enemies - it messes with their heads
Pete O'Hanlon wrote:
gathering user requirements feels like lap dancing a fat, sweaty bloke.
I hesitate to ask just how you know this, and I really don't think I want to know. I'm never going to get to sleep tonight with that image in my head... :sigh:
Will Rogers never met me.
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Just curious, based on Chris' rant. So, do you actually develop applications that have a ribbon bar, or do you use the old fashioned menu and toolbars? Do your customers demand that you create a UI with a ribbon so they feel like they are in the "modern" world? Marc
In my experience Ribbon does improve the usability of an application. It definitely lives up to the promise of making obscure program features evident. For instance, after implementing ribbon in an application people praised me about all the "new" features in the application (rather than the ribbon). In reality all the "new" features in the application were already there in the previous versions. The only problem with ribbon is that it does not make the keyboard shortcuts evident.
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Just curious, based on Chris' rant. So, do you actually develop applications that have a ribbon bar, or do you use the old fashioned menu and toolbars? Do your customers demand that you create a UI with a ribbon so they feel like they are in the "modern" world? Marc
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Just curious, based on Chris' rant. So, do you actually develop applications that have a ribbon bar, or do you use the old fashioned menu and toolbars? Do your customers demand that you create a UI with a ribbon so they feel like they are in the "modern" world? Marc
Most of my clients find "ribbon bars" confusing space-hogs.
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Yes, you are not the Jedi I am looking for. I will move along.
wow! the Force works very well here! :omg:
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In my experience Ribbon does improve the usability of an application. It definitely lives up to the promise of making obscure program features evident. For instance, after implementing ribbon in an application people praised me about all the "new" features in the application (rather than the ribbon). In reality all the "new" features in the application were already there in the previous versions. The only problem with ribbon is that it does not make the keyboard shortcuts evident.
The only implementation of ribbons that I liked was in SolidWorks. They also kept the menus. But you can completely change the ribbons and what buttons are on what ribbons. I don't think it would be that hard to implement either. I know that adding your own ribbon and buttons through the SolidWorks API is 1000 times easier than adding buttons to Excel through the its API.
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Just curious, based on Chris' rant. So, do you actually develop applications that have a ribbon bar, or do you use the old fashioned menu and toolbars? Do your customers demand that you create a UI with a ribbon so they feel like they are in the "modern" world? Marc
I never cared for the ribbon myself, that's why I've stayed with Office2003 (which I keep under lock and key). In my small development business I have even standardized on O2003 because of it's relative simplicity and mandated that my partners do the same. It just works. As for the software we develop, we're deliberate about keeping the interface as SIMPLE as possible which means NO ribbon. Some screens have a simple toolbar, others a few menus but even there we keep the UI as conservative as possible so the user can really focus on the data they're dealing with. -Max
modified on Thursday, December 2, 2010 9:07 AM
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Just curious, based on Chris' rant. So, do you actually develop applications that have a ribbon bar, or do you use the old fashioned menu and toolbars? Do your customers demand that you create a UI with a ribbon so they feel like they are in the "modern" world? Marc
Yes I wanted to rewrite my file sync app and I thought that users would view the ribbon as being a very modern and appealing look. The tabs/toolbar design also fits my app very well. After releasing it most users love the new look. Only 2 or 3 users objected and that is because they just hate the ribbon - it does not seem to matter to them that it fits well with the app. See for yourselves here: www.ajcsoft.com/AJCSync.php
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Just curious, based on Chris' rant. So, do you actually develop applications that have a ribbon bar, or do you use the old fashioned menu and toolbars? Do your customers demand that you create a UI with a ribbon so they feel like they are in the "modern" world? Marc
Yes, we use ribbons in all our applications. When DevExpress released their first ribbon control for WinForms I was quite hesitant to use it. So I created a customizable interface to allow the end-users to switch between the ribbon, standard menu/toolbars or a sliding/dockable navigation bar. After several months virtually all of them were using the ribbon bar with only a few using the navigation bar. All subsequent applications are ribbon only. With the DevExpress ribbon, keyboard navigation is very easy and it also includes the quick-launch bar like Office (their favorite feature). For those that complained it took up too much space, it was a training issue....they didn't know how to minimize the ribbon. Once trained though they were actually more receptive to the Office ribbon. Cheers!
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Yes, yes and yes. We are development whores, and will do anything for the clients money. This explains why gathering user requirements feels like lap dancing a fat, sweaty bloke.
I have CDO, it's OCD with the letters in the right order; just as they ruddy well should be
Forgive your enemies - it messes with their heads
-
Just curious, based on Chris' rant. So, do you actually develop applications that have a ribbon bar, or do you use the old fashioned menu and toolbars? Do your customers demand that you create a UI with a ribbon so they feel like they are in the "modern" world? Marc
We switched to a ribbon in our product. We've had almost no complaints from users, and many compliments. A well-designed ribbon exposes the application's most-used functionality with fewer clicks--sometimes many fewer. Our users can get to our most-used functionality with a single click, and they very rarely need more than two. I use the app myself many times a day, and I absolutely hate it when I have to work with the old menus (yes, we do support both UIs, although we no longer update the menus with new functionality). The hard part of ribbons is the design, not the coding. If you just take your old menus and translate them to a ribbon, you're wasting your time. You have to view the app functionally: What do the users do most often, and how can we organize our functionality most logically and conveniently? Were our users asking for a ribbon? Absolutely not. Does that mean we shouldn't have done it? Absolutely not. Sometimes users don't know that they want something until you've shown it to them.